Christopher Brand

Race, sex, psychology and censorship

Edinburgh University have fired psychology lecturer
Chris Brand in a blatant act of censorship.

After fourteen months of 'inquiring' into
Chris Brand, censoring Chris Brand and suspending Chris Brand, the
University of Edinburgh next sacked its 'race realist' IQ psychologist
-- though an appeal by Brand and his lawyers will follow, and then
perhaps legal action in Scotland's public courts.

What on earth is this all about? How can a once-great university
have chosen to abandon the principle of academic freedom rather than
hear any more from the hereditarian psychologist whom it had employed
without complaint for 26 years? Read on and learn how Edinburgh
University caved in to Political Correctness and kindred modern
pressures!

The affair of
'The g Factor': A SUMMARY

'The 'g'
Factor'

is a book about human
intelligence. In particular, it tries to answer
social-environmentalists and methodological solipsists such as
Professors Leon Kamin, Steve Gould, Steve Rose and Steve Jones -- the
self-appointed arch-critics of 'general intelligence' ('g') today
(though only Kamin is himself a psychologist).

'The 'g' Factor' maintains that there are real, deep-seated human
differences in intelligence to which the education systems of the
English-speaking world must make a more adequate response -- by
treating children as the individuals they are, rather than grouping
them only according to chronological age.

The book went on sale in the UK on February 29, 1996.

Despite very favourable reviews (e.g. in 'Nature'), 'The 'g'
Factor' fell foul of 'political correctness' about race and IQ. In
press interviews, Brand freely agreed there was a Black-White IQ
difference, that the difference was substantially genetic, and that he
was (qua supporter of the London School) what Kamin et al. had
for years been allowed to call a "scientific racist" -- or a 'race
realist.' On April 17, 1996, 'The 'g' Factor' was withdrawn as
"repellent" by Wiley & Sons (New York and Chichester). Wiley
followed up their modern version of censorship by refusing to publish
a new book on 'g' by Berkeley's Emeritus Professor Arthur Jensen -- a
proposal which Wiley had had under consideration for nine months.

The Principal of Edinburgh University, Sir Stewart Sutherland, also
felt moved to distance himself from Brand and 'The 'g' Factor' and did
so in a press conference. Thus, from May, 1996, the UK press
repeatedly carried the story that the Principal found Brand's views
"false and personally obnoxious." In August, and again in October, the
'Anti-Nazi' League in Edinburgh mounted noisy demonstrations and made
it impossible for Brand to lecture there unless the authorities
(police and University security) acted to prevent interruptions and
intimidation -- which those bodies showed no inclination to do.

In the course of running a lively Internet 'newsletter' to
maintain publicity for 'The 'g' Factor' and his campaign against Wiley
and Principal Sutherland, Brand further 'outraged' the Scottish media
by urging moderation in the criminal proceedings in Maryland against a
US Nobel-Prizewinner indicted for paedophilia. Brand pointed to the
apparent harmlessness of consensual adult-pubescent paedophilia
(e.g. as practised in ancient Greece and Rome and in modern Papua New
Guinea). Thus, on October 16, 1996, Brand claimed in his e-mailed
NewsLetter that modern scientific researches and his own experience
(both as a choirboy and as a prison psychologist) showed no harm was
done, on average, by consensual sex between adults and pubescents so
long as both parties were of above-average intelligence and the
younger party to the affair was a teenager.

After Principal Sutherland wrote to 'The Scotsman' on November 4,
1996, denying he had ever condemned Brand's views, Brand's statement
about paedophilia was drawn to the attention of the Scottish press
(whether by enemies or just money-makers is unclear) and 'scandalised'
front-page comment immediately appeared in tabloid newspapers
(November 8). (One front-page headline was:

FIRE BRAND

['Daily Record', Nov. 9].). Suspension from teaching and nine
months of investigation by an E.U. Tribunal culminated on August 8,
1997, in Brand being dismissed, after 27 years of service, for his
"gross misconduct" in doubting the invariable harmfulness of
'paedophilia.' The E. U. Principal specially complained in his Press
Release that Brand had "courted publicity" -- though just what the
de-published author should have done instead was not indicated.

Currently, Brand and his legal advisers are lodging an appeal
with the University and aim to follow that up with other appropriate
legal action (e.g. in the Scottish High Court) if the appeal should
fail. Returnable donations are invited to a Fighting Fund maintained
by Brand's law firm, Harper Macleod, 45, Gordon Street, Glasgow G1
3PE. Meanwhile, Brand is still waiting for a decent re-publication of
'The 'g' Factor.' (Wiley still claim to retain copyright despite their
breach of contract with Brand and insist that any re-publication
should contain no criticism of their own conduct.)

Brand's next major undertaking (together with a US writer, Kevin
Lamb) is scheduled to be a biography of William McDougall FRS -- the
Anglo-Scottish polymath who became Professor of Psychology at Harvard
(1920-1927) and proceeded to fall out with the 'New York Times' and
his fellow psychologists over the importance of instincts, biological
factors and race differences. A 'McDougall NewsLetter' is being
published at the Internet website
<http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/> and draft copies can be
previewed by request to cbrand@cycad.com.

The Summary Of My Book On The INTERNET Shows What Actually *Are* My
Views, And How Absurd And Hysterical Are The Modern Forces Of
'Political Correctness' In Trying To Censor Me. Even The
E.U. Principal Who Faults Me Has Himself Condemned WILEY's Behaviour
As "Abominable." I Am Certainly A Race-Realist, But My Sympathies For
The Proper Aspirations Of Black People--Especially As Against Those Of
Mainly-White 'PeeCee' People--Can Be Seen In The Current Issue Of
'downlow' Magazine (Autumn 1996, p. 33). There, I Explain In Layman's
Terms The Need For More Choice In How Children Are Educated And In How
Marriages Are Arranged - Freedoms From Failed And Increasingly
Despotic Egalitarianism That Are Needed By Both Blacks *And*
Whites.